


Late Night Regrets

by linndechir



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games)
Genre: Guilt, Infidelity, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2020-12-27 03:49:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21112181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: The problem wasn't that he'd let Adam through the door when he'd shown up tonight, or that he'd kissed Adam against the kitchen counter like his life depended on it. The problem was that none of it felt half as wrong as it should.





	Late Night Regrets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dust_motes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dust_motes/gifts).

Jim startled awake, at the same time perfectly comfortable and acutely aware that something wasn’t right.

He was in his bed, in Prague, in the middle of the night judging from a glance at the clock on the nightstand. Which was exactly where he should be.

He wasn’t alone, though, and considering that Neil wasn’t visiting, that was definitely not how it should be.

Slow, perfectly even breathing against his shoulder, the slight tickle of a beard against his skin, a sleep-warm body pressed so tightly against his that Jim was surprised he’d managed to doze off at all. Although considering just what they’d been doing before that, and how thoroughly, and for how long, it probably shouldn’t have surprised him at all.

Fuck.

Adam stirred against him, moved his hand over Jim’s stomach and raised his head to look up at him. The small lamp on the nightstand was still on – neither of them had bothered to turn it off when they’d stumbled into bed. Jim had wanted to see him so badly, and as he met Adam’s green-golden eyes now, he almost regretted that. Might have been easier to do this in the dark. Then again, he wouldn’t have wanted to miss that view for the world: Adam’s perfect back muscles as he moved against Jim, his usually so carefully styled hair ruffled and dishevelled, the odd contrast of his slender black fingers against Jim’s skin. Fuck, he was beautiful. Jim had always noticed that Adam was handsome, but it didn’t use to matter any more than it had mattered with any other handsome man he’d worked with in his life. It didn’t use to distract him, to turn him on in the worst possible moments. Until a few months ago, it wouldn’t even have made him consider to – 

“Hey,” Adam said softly, his voice inexplicably sounding even more gravelly than usual. Maybe he’d been dozing, too. Maybe it was because Jim had fucked his mouth so hard Adam had almost choked on his cock, but when Jim had tried to pull back, mumbling an apology for getting carried away, Adam had grabbed his hips and pulled him closer with a strength that should have freaked Jim out. It hadn’t.

“Jensen,” Jim said, and the name tasted wrong in his mouth after what they’d just done. This hadn’t felt like a quick, meaningless fuck with a coworker, which would have been bad enough. It had been far, far too damn intimate for that. “Adam.”

He felt tension go through Adam’s body before it dissipated again, but he still looked more uncertain than Jim had ever seen him before. Jim couldn’t blame him. He doubted Adam had any more experience than him handling a situation like this – he didn’t strike Jim as the type to sleep with married men, or married women for that matter. Just like Jim had never been the type to cheat on his husband, not even if his husband drove him crazy these days and their marriage seemed mostly based on trying to get along for the kids’ sake and out of nostalgia for what they’d once shared. The closest he’d ever got to cheating had been years ago, before they’d adopted Susie and Ethan, when he and Neil had had a screaming row so bad Jim had stormed out to get drunk somewhere, and a hot young student had hit on him and Jim had flirted back for a little while instead of telling him he was taken, and then nothing had happened because it’d felt wrong and he’d still loved Neil even when they got mad at each other. He’d drunk a bit more, and then he’d gone home and talked to Neil and they had figured things out. Looking back it seemed easy in a way nothing between them was anymore these days. Their arguments couldn’t be solved anymore with a nice bottle of wine or some flowers and an “I love you”.

Apparently Adam had expected him to say more than that, because he suddenly looked away, as if embarrassed. He was still pressed against Jim’s side, though, as if he couldn’t make himself lose his touch. It had been the hottest fucking thing, the way Adam had melted underneath Jim’s hands, his lips. Like nobody had touched him in forever, like he’d been as desperate for Jim as Jim had been for him. Jim couldn’t even remember the last time he’d wanted anyone or anything as badly as he’d wanted Adam last night. He’d forgotten what that felt like – to do something for no other reason than because he wanted to, not because it was the right thing to do, not because he or anyone else expected him to.

“I should …” Adam didn’t finish the sentence, just made a vague gesture in the direction of the stairs. _I should leave_. After all, this had been a stupid mistake that should never be mentioned again, and you didn’t sleep in bed with a stupid mistake. You didn’t wake up together, shower together, have breakfast together. You didn’t smile at your stupid mistake over coffee, then kiss each other before one of you sneaked out a few minutes earlier so you wouldn’t arrive at work at the same time. Of course Adam should leave, and Jim should make it clear that this couldn’t happen again.

“You can’t,” Jim said, subconsciously slipping into the no bullshit voice he used to give orders at work. “Curfew.”

Adam’s lips curled.

“You know that’s not a problem,” he said.

“It’s not a problem until the time it is, and I don’t want you to get hurt because I threw you out in the middle of the night.” It sounded like a good reason, even if Adam had done far more dangerous things than sneak from Jim’s flat to his own after curfew, but it was easier than admitting the real reason. He didn’t want Adam to leave. Because the real problem wasn’t that this had happened at all, that he hadn’t had the strength to send Adam away when he’d come by earlier that night, even though he’d seen the look in his eyes, and that he hadn’t had the discipline to stop himself from kissing Adam against the kitchen counter like it was the only thing in the world keeping them both alive.

The real problem was that it hadn’t felt wrong. Oh, he’d felt guilty as hell, of course, had felt like exactly the kind of shitty cheating bastard he’d never wanted to be, but kissing Adam hadn’t felt wrong. Simply like the circumstances had to change so he could kiss Adam without feeling guilty about it, and that … that was not a line of thought he could afford to pursue.

Jim sighed and shifted a little. Adam’s body felt odd against his – the brush of his too hard legs against Jim’s, the odd sensation of those textured fingertips on his skin. It was weird, no doubt about it, but it wasn’t as unappealing as he would have expected once upon a time, when the idea of sleeping with Adam had at most been a passing thought. But now, those augs barely bothered him simply because it was Adam. Jim had a feeling he would have been right where he was now no matter what Adam looked like.

He put his arms around Adam’s shoulders to pull him closer, to stop him from getting up and going out there into a world that just waited for an excuse to shoot him in the back. It wasn’t fucking right, the way people treated Adam. Wasn’t right to treat any person that way, of course, but there weren’t many people who deserved it even less than Adam did – Adam who in his own ways always tried to help other people. Jim ran his fingers through Adam’s hair, pulled his head against his shoulder and couldn’t quite help a smile when Adam rubbed his cheek against Jim’s bare skin. If it meant he didn’t have to meet his eyes again, all the better.

“Doesn’t matter now, does it?” Jim said quietly, stroking his hair. “It won’t have not happened just because you run off right now.”

He wasn’t that much of a hypocrite yet, that he could tell himself he’d somehow cheated less because they hadn’t slept in one bed together afterwards, or that he somehow cared less about Adam because he stopped himself from touching him now. It was done. He hadn’t figured out yet if he was going to tell Neil – it would be the decent thing to do, and also the worst thing to do when their marriage was already more than a little rocky and they argued about things a lot less important than this – and of course it couldn’t happen again, but for now … a few hours more wouldn’t make it any worse. 

At least he tried to tell himself that, that he had a good reason for this other than wanting to savour every last second of it, of wanting a few more memories to cling to before he did the responsible thing and went back to his family, like he should. He couldn’t remember when that idea had become such a chore. He’d used to long for it, every time he was away from them for a few weeks. He’d used to miss Neil, to call him every night to talk about their respective days, to make plans for their weekends together. Now he looked for excuses to work on the weekends, and when he did see Neil, they both spent half their time navigating around touchy topics that would only lead to another argument. It felt more like work than work did.

“I’m sorry, you know?” Adam said after a few minutes, and Jim raised an eyebrow in surprise. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Adam apologise, at least not in a way that sounded like he meant it. “I didn’t come here for this, I came to talk, and then … I don’t know. But I shouldn’t have.”

Jim wanted to laugh, because if anyone shouldn’t have done this, it was him. Adam wasn’t the one with a husband and kids, with a family that depended on him. Hell, if it had just been Neil, this would have been easy – and the fact that he could think that so casually really should have been one hell of a warning sign. But he had a duty to his kids if nothing else, and his kids deserved two parents, a proper family, safe and stable, and not a dad who ran off with his younger subordinate because … because he was loyal and stubborn and funny and kind and good in a way so few people were in this shitty world, and because he looked at Jim like he’d finally added him to a very short list of people he trusted, and because he’d shivered under Jim’s hands and melted under his touch and surged against him like the two of them were the only thing that mattered in the world. Jim hated feeling like such a fucking cliché. He’d never been the kind of man who did stupid things for lust or love, and here he was, flushing his life down the drain because he wanted Adam in his bed more than he wanted to be a decent man.

“Yeah, that makes two of us,” he said and sighed. “And I have a lot more reasons why I shouldn’t than you, so you really don’t need to apologise to me.”

Apologies couldn’t undo this either, couldn’t make Jim forget what it had felt like to have Adam pull him on top of him, holding on to his shoulders and moaning helplessly, his voice going straight to Jim’s cock when he’d told Jim to fuck him. When he’d told him that the Sentinel meant Jim didn’t even need to use a condom, and Jim had tried very hard not to think about the fact that there was only one other man in the world he’d ever fucked bare and that man was his husband. And it had taken him and Neil forever to reach that point, where they’d trusted each other that much, where they’d felt like they wanted something so intimate. With Adam he’d stumbled into it head first with nary a second thought. Adam was such a goddamn pain in his arse most of the time, and yet somehow everything about this night had felt so fucking easy. Like it had been meant to happen, but of course that was just another convenient lie to justify what he’d done. Jim didn’t believe in bullshit like fate – people did things because they decided to do them, not because they were meant to or because they just couldn’t help themselves. He could have helped himself. He could have sent Adam away. He could have pushed him back and reminded him that he was married, that whatever this was between them couldn’t happen under any circumstances. The fact that he hadn’t done that was on him.

“Maybe,” Adam said. He kissed Jim’s shoulder, ran his fingers up over his chest and then down his arms, caressed his wrist for a moment before his fingertips brushed over Jim’s palm. His hands were impressively careful, he hadn’t even bruised Jim all night, and Jim knew just how much strength was in those augs. He’d seen Adam literally crush a man’s throat with his bare hands. But he didn’t hesitate before he entangled his fingers with Adam’s and looked down at the strange sight of their hands together. 

“Still, you don’t have to worry about this. I know … I know how things are.” Adam didn’t elaborate, but the quiet, resigned tone of his voice made it perfectly clear what he meant. After all he knew Jim was married, hell, he’d met Jim’s husband. Had met the kids, too, and even back then, when Jim had still been in hospital and almost dying had briefly convinced him he and Neil would make things work again between them, his heart had done all kinds of unpleasant things in his chest when he’d seen how much the kids had liked Adam. Jim knew he wouldn’t have to chase Adam off, wouldn’t have to explain to him that this couldn’t happen again, because Adam knew. It should have made this easier, but the truth was that Adam’s tone was almost painful to hear. It made Jim want to reassure him, to tell him that it didn’t have to be like that, that they could have … 

Nothing at all. Not even more stolen nights like this one, because that was not who Jim was. Not who Jim was going to be. Neil pissed him off half the time these days, but he didn’t deserve to sit at home taking care of the kids while Jim had an affair with a ridiculously handsome younger man. Jim wasn’t sure if the fact that he cared so much for Adam made it better or worse.

“I’m sorry, Adam,” Jim said. He cupped Adam’s chin, made himself look into those far too expressive eyes. Fuck, it shouldn’t be possible for something so artificial to look so goddamn sad. So heartbroken. Like Adam wanted something more than a night to blow off steam, to get laid with a man he could at least be sure wasn’t trying to kill him. Like Adam was as deep in shit as Jim was. Jim couldn’t make him leave, not tonight. “I still don’t want you to go.”

A wry smile played around Adam’s lips. He moved up a little, until his face almost touched Jim’s. Almost kissed him again. God, but Adam was a good kisser, passionate and tender and so fucking eager. Jim’s life would have been so much easier if he’d never found out about that.

“In for a penny, in for a pound, that what you’re saying?”

Jim couldn’t help but laugh a little. He was still holding on to Adam’s hand – earlier tonight Adam had been so hesitant to let Jim touch his augs at all, and now he seemed downright comfortable with this. And that was the whole problem, wasn’t it? How easy this felt. How comfortable. Like this wasn’t the first night they spent together, and like it couldn’t possibly be the last.

“Now that’s a dangerous way of thinking.” He brushed his other thumb over Adam’s lips, watched the way his eyes closed for just a second, the way his lips parted in a soft gasp. Fuck, if he’d hoped to get this out of his system, he’d miscalculated badly. Every time he touched Adam, he only wanted him more for it.

“Just tonight, all right?” he said and tried to believe it himself. “It’ll be morning in a few hours anyway.”

Adam hesitated just for a moment, but it was obvious that he’d never wanted to leave in the first place. He’d just been trying to make it easier for Jim, because of course he had. Stupid self-sacrificing bastard. 

“Okay,” Adam finally said and Jim had never been more grateful that he didn’t argue. He squeezed Jim’s hand, pressed such a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth that Jim barely felt it and still felt it far too much.

Just one night. He could be sensible and responsible in the morning. He would have to be, because if he did this again, he doubted he’d ever manage to stop.


End file.
